A multitude of studies on the Total Cost of Operation (TCO) show that almost half of TCO, which in turn is five to ten times the purchase price of the system hardware and software, is spent in resolving problems or preparing for imminent problems in the system. See, for example, David A. Wheeler, “Why Open Source Software/Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!”, available at http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html#tco, Revised as of Apr. 12, 2007; and Gillen A., Kusnetzky, McLaron S., The role of Linux in reducing cost of enterprise computing, IDC white paper, January 2002. Hence, the cost of problem determination and resolution (PDR) represents a substantial part of operational costs.
Making PDR cost effective, for example, through standardization and asset reuse has not worked in traditional information technology (IT) environments. See, for example, “WebSphere Application Server V6 Problem Determination for Distributed Platforms”, SG24-6798-00, Redbook, 20 Nov. 2005; and “DB2 Warehouse Management: High Availability and Problem Determination Guide”, SG24-6544-00, Redbook, 22 Mar. 2002. The IT resources being dedicated to a particular customer and their applications, leads to a diversity of configuration among IT environments and applications that make it difficult to programmatically reuse scripts, workflows, lessons learned from one environment to another.